Wednesday 31 October 2012

CFP: 2nd Global Conference: Apocalypse: Imagining the End

Wednesday 10th July–Friday 12th July 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Presentations:

From Christian concept of the ‘Apocalypse’ to the Hindu notions of the Kali Yuga, visions of destruction and fantasies of the ‘end times’ have a long history. In the last few years, public media, especially in the West, have been suffused with images of the end times and afterward, from the zombie apocalypse (the AMC series The Walking Dead) to life after the collapse of civilization (the NBC series Revolution.) Several popular television series and video games (Deep Earth Bunker) are now based on preparing for and surviving the end of the world. Once a fringe activity, ‘survivalism’ has gone mainstream, and a growing industry supplies ‘doomsday preppers’ with all they need to the post-apocalyptic chaos. One purpose of the conference is to explore these ideas by situating them in context — psychological, historical, literary, cultural, political, and economic. The second aim of conference is to examine today’s widespread fascination the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic thought, and to understand its rising appeal across broad sections of contemporary society around the world.

This interdisciplinary project welcomes presentations from all disciplines and research areas, including anthropology, psychoanalysis, political economy, psychology, area studies, communal studies, environmental studies, history, sociology, religion, theology, and gender studies.

Presentations,papers, performances, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to (but not limited to) the following themes:

- Decline, Collapse, Decay, Disease, Mass Death
- Survivalism and Doomsday Preppers
- Revolution
- Theories of Social Change
- Peak Oil, Resource Depletion, Global Warming, Economic Collapse
- The Second Coming/Millenarianism/Rapture
- The Hindu Kali Yuga
- Sex and Gender at the End of Time
- Ironic and/or Anti-Apocalyptic Thinking
- Utopia and Dystopia
- Intentional Communities as Communities of the End Times
- Selling the Apocalypse, Commodifying Disaster, and Marketing the End Times
- Death Tourism and Disaster Capitalism
- The Age of Terror
- Zombies, Vampires, and Werewolves in Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
- Disaster Fiction/Movies/Video Games
- History as Apocalypse
- Remembering and Reliving the Collapse of the Western Roman Empire

What to send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.

E-mails should be entitled: Apocalypse2 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs:

Charles W. Nuckolls 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the ‘Ethos’ series of research projects, which in turn belong to the Critical Issues programmes of ID.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be published in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for publication in a themed dialogic ISBN hard copy volume.

For further details of the conference, please click here

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

CFP: 4th Global Conference: Revenge

Sunday 14th July–Tuesday 16th July 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Presentations:

Confucius is said to have remarked, ‘Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves,’ implying that revenge cannot be undertaken without recursive deleterious effects on the revenging agent. This is the view that revenge is at best counterproductive, or that seeking it runs counter to the ethical mandate that one turn the other cheek. Does that mean that vengeful motives are out of place in seeking justice for real wrongs? Should the law attempt to exclude vengeance-seeking? Do some economic or political systems tolerate, or even require, elaborate systems of revenge? Not all societies, of course, would agree that revenge is ethically problematic; some would define revenge as a necessary component in social relationships, even as a method for connecting people across time or over distances. Traditional grudges are commonplace in places as cultural different from each as the Swat Valley (Pakistan) and the American Southeast. Given all this, is is even possible to come up with a universally relevant concept of revenge that would make comparison possible?

This multi-disciplinary research and publications project seeks to explore the different ideas, actions, and cultural traditions of vengeance or revenge. The project explores the nature of revenge, its relationship with issues of justice, economy, and social organization, and its manifestation in the actions of individuals, cultures, communities and nations. We will also consider the history and political economy of revenge, its ‘legitimacy,’ the ‘scale’ of vengeful actions, and whether or not revenge has (or should have) ‘limits.’ Representations of revenge in film, literature, law, television, and cultural performances will be analysed; cultural ‘traditions’ of retaliation and revenge will be considered. And the role of mercy, forgiveness and pardon will be assessed.

Presentations will be considered on the following or related themes:

- Philosophies of revenge
- Revenge and political economy
- Revenge in the philsophies of East and South Asia: Confucian and Hindu perspectives
- Revenge in Maori culture
- Vengeance and gender
- Vengeance in history, literature, and popular culture
- Revenge cross-culturally
- Is there any proper and improper time for revenge? Can an act of revenge be carried across generations?
- Revenge, vengeance, retaliation
- Justice and revenge
- Betrayal, humiliation, shame, resentment, and revenge
- Revenge and the individual; revenge and the group; revenge and the nation; revenge and capitalism
- Revenge in music and the arts
- Revenge in television, film, radio and theatre
- Relationship between revenge and mercy, forgiveness, pardon
- Revenge case-studies: individual, cultural, and historical

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.

What to send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words

E-mails should be entitled: REV4 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Joint Organising Chairs:

Charles W. Nuckolls 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers maybe invited for development for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).

For further details of the conference, please click here

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies (MANCASS) Programme 2012-13

Monday 8 October 2012, 5pm: Faye Simpson (Manchester Metropolitan University): ‘An Anglo-Saxon woman – and a cow’

Monday 12 November 2012, 5pm: Peter Darby (University of Leicester): ‘Bede’s history of the future’

Monday 11 February 2013, 5pm: Helen Gittos (University of Kent): ‘The Languages of the Liturgy in Medieval England’

All in the Samuel Alexander Building, rooms to be announced

Monday 4 March 2013, 6pm: The Toller Lecture: Leslie Webster (formerly of the British Museum)
The Historic Reading Room, John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester
Followed by a FREE wine reception in the foyer of the building. Anyone wishing to attend the dinner following the reception (at Pesto, Deansgate) should contact Gale Owen-Crocker by 18 February 2013. The cost will be around £25 per person.

Thursday 21 March 2013, 6pm: Joint Meeting with Manchester Medieval Society: Hannah Cobb (University of Manchester): ‘The Viking Ship from Arnamurchan, Scotland’
The Historic Reading Room, John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester
Anyone wishing to attend the dinner following the lecture (at Pesto, Deansgate) should contact Susan Thompson by 7 March 2013.

Easter Conference: ‘The Vikings in the North-West’: details to be announced.

There will not be a MANCASS postgraduate conference in 2013, but we hope to resume in 2014.

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Upcoming London Medieval Colloquium

The London Medieval Society Colloquium on

Who read what in the Middle Ages?

Saturday 17 November, 2012
The Lock-Keeper’s Cottage,
Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS

10.30-11.00
COFFEE AND REGISTRATION

11.00-11.45
Jane Williams (QMUL)
A Merchant and his books: Book-ownership in the Forster Family Circle


11.45-12.50
Derek Pearsall (University of York)
The Idea of the Vernacular Author


12.50-2.00
LUNCH
(Please bring your own packed lunch. Hot and cold drinks will be available.)

2.00-3.00
Pamela Robinson (School of Advanced Study)
Who read what? From Aristotle to ‘lewde calendars’


3.00-3.30
TEA

3.30-4.30
Ryan Perry (University of Kent)
The Material Text: Identity and the Late Medieval Book


4.30-5.00
Roundtable discussion
Facilitated by Tom Lawrence


5.00-6.00
Wine Reception to welcome Professor Julia Boffey to the LMS Presidency

The Colloquium is free to members of the London Medieval Society. New members are always welcome, see www.the-lms.org to download an application form.

Membership is annual £20 (£10 concessions). The cost to attend any colloquium for non-members is £10 (£5 concessions).

Members please book free on: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk and search London Medieval Society. (This is an experiment: we expect our colloquia to be busy and want to ensure we have enough room.)

Any queries please contact Diane Heath (Colloquium Secretary)

Dates for future Colloquia in the 2012-2013 academic year:

23rd February 2013: ‘Rhetoric’
Mary Carruthers, Rita Copeland, Ian Wei, Gwilym Dodd, Jon Morton

27th April 2013: 'Postgraduates Present’ with guest speaker Professor David d’Avray (UCL)
Postgraduates are invited to submit abstracts of 250 words on their chosen topic by 18th March 2013

16th November 2013: LMS hosts the 5th Biennial London Chaucer Conference

For full details, please see the website

President: Professor Julia Boffey
Patron: Professor Michael Clanchy

Upcoming Talk by Richard Britnell


MANCHESTER MEDIEVAL SOCIETY

Founded 1933

Secretary: Susan Thompson ~ President: Cordelia Warr ~ Treasurer: Hannah Priest

Lords and Tenants in the North: a Cross-Border Perspective.

Professor Richard Britnell

Durham University

THURSDAY October 18th at 6 pm.

Venue: Samuel Alexander A101

 
Note change of venue

Sunday 7 October 2012

University of Manchester History Seminars

1st Semester 2012-13
All Welcome

Research Seminars:
Alternate Thursdays, 4 for 4.15pm
Room 4.206, University Place
(Followed by drinks with the speaker)


4th October: Everyday Life and the Scales of History
Frank Trentmann, Manchester & Birkbeck

18th October: From Cordoba to Prague: Ruler, Cities and the Power of Place in the Middle Ages
David Rollason, York

8th November: History, Memory and the English Reformation
Alexandra Walsham, Cambridge

22nd November: E.P. Thompson: War Experiences, Activism and Social History
Holger Nehring, Sheffield

6th December: The Cult of Queen Victoria in India
Miles Taylor, IHR

Lunchtime Seminars:
1-2pm, Room S3.1, Samuel Alexander
(Feel free to bring your lunch)


26th September: The political redefinition of tobacco smoking after Liberation (1949)
Yangwen Zheng

10th October: Imposter! Fraud and authenticity in the charitable market, c. 1870-1912’
Julie-Marie Strange and Bertrand Taithe

24th October: Famine and Society in Warlord China, 1920-21
Pierre Fuller

14th November: The End of the Celtic Latin Charter Tradition Revisited?
Charles Insley

28th November: The Monetary Origins of Luther's Reformation
Philipp Rössner

For more information and other news, please click here.